Lawmakers are discussing an extension that would keep government agencies open until at least Dec. 22. The House is set to vote on it Thursday afternoon. But there are still sticking points among Republicans in the House and Democrats in the Senate.

If a government shutdown happens – and, at this point, that’s still a big if – it will be the 19th time since 1976.

Others have lasted for days and even weeks. So the Ghost of Shutdowns Past haunts the current negotiations as lawmakers scramble to keep the government operating.

Here’s a look at the four longest government shutdowns, why they happened and the fallout from each.

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Spoiler alert: nothing good.
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Duration: 21 days. Started Dec. 5, 1995, ended Jan. 6, 1996

The longest shutdown on record resulted from an impasse in budget talks between President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. It came just a month after a five-day shutdown that lasted from Nov. 13-19, 1995.

Both standoffs involved a disagreement over tax cuts. Gingrich and other congressional Republicans wanted to slow the rate of government spending. Clinton refused to slash spending to the GOP’s liking, Gingrich refused to raise the debt limit, and chaos ensued.

The first shutdown ended when Congress passed a temporary spending bill. But a month later, major portions of the government ceased operations again when the parties were unable to resolve their differences. The second shutdown finally ended with a seven-year, balanced-budget plan that included modest spending cuts and tax increases.

Who won? Clinton, if public opinion is any indication. Polls showed that most Americans blamed the Republicans for the standoff. Clinton’s approval ratings soared, and he was elected to a second term later that fall.

Gingrich, on the other hand, was ridiculed mercilessly after saying he had drafted two government shutdown resolutions following a trip with Clinton aboard Air Force One to attend the funeral of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin.

Gingrich groused that Clinton had passed up an opportunity to continue the budget talks during that trip and that – horror! – he had been forced to exit from the back of the plane. A front-page cartoon in a New York tabloid depicted Gingrich as a diaper-clad, bottle-clutching infant in full-tantrum mode. “Cry Baby,” the headline screamed.

Duration: 18 days. Started Sept. 30, 1978, ended Oct. 18, 1978

Democrat Jimmy Carter was president, and his party held majorities in both the House and the Senate. Yet the Democrats’ solid grip on government was not enough to avert a government shutdown.

The standoff escalated when Carter vetoed a defense bill that included funding for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and public works legislation that included funding for various water projects. Carter considered those projects wasteful spending. On top of that, funding for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was delayed because of a dispute involving Medicaid funding for abortion.

The standoff ended with a new defense bill that removed funding for the aircraft carrier, a new public works bill that stripped out the projects that Carter opposed, and both the House and Senate passing a bill that reserved abortion funding for special cases, such as rape, incest or if the mother’s health was in jeopardy.

Who won? Carter, who managed to jettison projects that he considered a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Duration: 16 days. Started Oct. 1, 2013, ended Oct. 17, 2013

The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was at the center of the nation’s third-longest shutdown.

Unable to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, conservative Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sought to delay or defund Obamacare by starving it of federal money.

With the close of the fiscal year drawing near and no spending plan in sight, the Republican-controlled House passed a temporary measure that would keep the government running but would cut funding to implement Obamacare. The Democratic-majority Senate rejected that plan, which was essentially designed to gut Obamacare.

The impasse resulted in a government shutdown in which 800,000 federal employees were indefinitely furloughed and another 1.3 million were required to report to work without any clue when they would actually get paid.

The standoff ended when Republicans conceded defeat. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, negotiated an agreement to reopen the government. For Republicans, the only silver lining was that the deal included stricter rules for verifying the income of Americans accessing Obamacare’s health insurance exchange, or marketplace.

Who won? Obama and the Democrats. While polls showed that Americans widely disapproved of how government leaders had handled the shutdown, Republicans got the brunt of the blame.

Duration: 12 days. Started Sept. 30, 1977, ended Oct. 13, 1977

Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, but could not agree on the use of Medicaid funding for abortion.

House Democrats wanted to continue a ban on using Medicaid to pay for abortions, except in cases when the mother’s life was in jeopardy. Senate Democrats wanted funding to be allowed in cases of rape or incest. The impasse ended up shutting down the government when the issue became linked to funding for the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

The shutdown ended with a short-term funding bill that allowed the ban to continue temporarily and gave both sides more time to negotiate.

Who won? Republicans. Despite majorities in both chambers of Congress, Democrats failed a crucial leadership test and allowed an intra-party disagreement to shutter the government.